Quote Originally Posted by omarali50 View Post

[A] Chapter 2: p-20’s description of the “Muslim view of Christianity and Judaism” (that Judaism and Christianity are partial revelations, later completed by Islam) is one way some Muslims may look upon this issue. But others (probably more numerous in the general public, and certainly more representative of the Salafist, Wahabist and Maudoodist view) will place emphasis on the fact that God sent an (in its own way) complete revelation to them too (maybe different in some details, but not “partial”) but they have corrupted it. What they now know as Judaism or Christianity is NOT what God sent them. This last point is crucial.

[B] P-22. This is extreme nitpicking, but really, the way Muslims see Western power today and the way Christendom saw Muslim power in the middle ages are NOT symmetrical opposites.

[A]
Correct, indeed according to Akhtar, Quran and the Secular Mind
With the coming of Islam, the earlier people of the book are dismissed as a failed spiritual experiment (Q:57:16–17). p. 29
And in Freidman’s words, Tolerance and Coercion in Islam,
Islamic tradition Islam is not only the historical religion and institutional framework, which was brought into existence by the Prophet Muhammad in the seventh century, but also the primordial religion of mankind, revealed to Adam at the time of his creation. This is intimately related to the conception that Adam was a prophet,16 and to the notion that Ibrahim was a Muslim in this metahistorical sense. The idea that Islam had been the primordial religion of mankind, preached by the prophets of old, created an affinity between the Prophet Muhammad [an excellent legitimating strategy on his part- T] and his predecessors in the prophetic office. Muslim tradition frequently presents the Prophet as a brother, or a spiritual heir, of ancient prophets. Numerous episodes in his traditional sıra reflect this perception. During his visit to the city of Ta’if, the Prophet met a young man from the city of Nınawa (= Nineveh) and described himself as brother of Yünus b. Matta (= Jonah) who hailed from the same city (dhaka akhı kana nabiyyan wa ana nabı). When he reached Medina and was told that the Jews were fasting on the tenth day of the first month (ashüra, corresponding to the Day of Atonement, yom ha-kippurim), because on that day Allah saved the sons of Israel from their enemies and Moses fasted on that day, Muhammad said: “I am more deserving of Moses than you are” (ana a˛aqqu bi-Müsa minkum) and fasted on that day. He is also reported to have said that he was “the person worthiest of Jesus” (ana awla al-nas bi-Isa b. Maryam). The intimate relationship between Jesus and Muhammad is sometimes explained by the belief that no prophet was sent by Allah between them.All these traditions can be subsumed under the general statement according to which “the prophets are half-brothers: their mothers are different, but their religion is one” (… al-anbiya ikhwatun li-fiallat ummahatuhum shatta wa dınuhum wahid). This is understood to mean that the prophets’ belief in the unity of God and in the principles of their respective religions (usül al-dın) is one, but they differ with regard to the particular laws ( furü amaliyyat, fiqhiyyat). This is comparable with certain changes which occurred in the religion of Islam itself: at one time the Muslims were commanded to face Jerusalem in prayer; later their qibla was changed to Mecca. Nevertheless, Islam remained the same religion. Similar developments can be discerned in the development of the prophetic religions in general. For instance, the Children of Israel had been commanded to keep the Sabbath; when Islam emerged, the observance of the Sabbath was forbidden and replaced by Friday. Thus, though particular laws have been changed by Allah in the course of time, the religion of all the prophets is still the same.
In other words, Islam abrogated all previous religions (anything that comes afterward is just madness of course). Of course, with Islam the concept of fitrah states that all people are born Muslim and are only perverted from Truth by their non-Islamic parents or the culture they live in. One of the purposes of Jihad (as a subordinate concept [ways] of Dawa [ends]) is to free them from the “shackles of self-imposed immaturity” (if I may pervert Kant). What we call the Islamic conquests were called the futuhaat (the openings) and aimed at freeing the world from Jahilliya and bringing it back to Truth. Sort of like the Yanks making the world safe for democracy and freedom (or, rather their concept of it) or even the Communists.


If I may I’d like to offer a counter-point in the form of an anecdote. In 2008 I was sitting at the library in Brunel “university” researching for an essay on Soviet security policy, sharing a table with a four Pakistani girls, one with a hijab. They were talking about boys so I ignored them for the most part (apart from when they used their mobiles…in the library!) Anyway, somewhere between Chapter 1 and Chapter 3 of Tucker’s, Soviet Political Mind, their conversation had turned to religion. One of the girls said that their father had told them that all religions were equal and that everyone had a heaven to go to. Some of the girls nodded. Except for Hijab-girl. She smiled condescendingly and said (and I paraphrase) “that’s what they say but that’s not what our deen (i.e. religion) says. If you knew Islam properly you would know that. How can the kaffir be equal to a Muslim?” Knowing where that conversation was going (not an untypical conversation for Brunel, or SOAS, or Kings, or even Oxford) I decided to repair to the bar. Sometimes having a permanent tan has its advantages you know (I wouldn’t have heard that conversation otherwise).


[B] An important point often neglected. Many people forget, or don’t even know, that up until the end of the Second Crusade the Crusaders themselves were unaware that they were fighting a rival universalist group and had been calling the Muslims “Hagarenes” up to that point. The whole collision of Europe with Islam is a messy field of, if I may borrow a phrase, perception and misperception.